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Best Free Adware-Spyware-Scumware Remover
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Introduction
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Discussion
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Top of the list is Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Free (MBAM). MBAM is a top notch and reputable product. A fairly lightweight download (just over 10 MB) and simple installation means this is not a burdensome product. In my testing, even when the PC was severely infected with many nasties running, it started without any problem and scanned and removed those nasties effectively. The interface is very simple, the scans are very fast and detection is first class. A reboot to complete cleaning was still required for some malware, though this is a minor inconvenience, and required by most programs of this type. The only downside is it has no portable version, and if there is no working network connection in the infected PC you won't be able to download the latest virus definition updates. Second is SUPERAntiSpyware (SAS). Once upon a time this was a good product but recent releases have not been up to the mark. The interface is simple, updates are speedy but it still installs a start-up item which doesn't actually do anything at all. The scan speed is twice to thrice that of MBAM and the detection is less than half of it. The removal also left a lot to be desired. It left a few nasties running even when it showed them as removed. SAS also requires a reboot to complete the removal process. The upside is, it has a portable version which will help with the removal of infections from computers without a working network connection. I hope version 5 brings improvements. ~~~~~ Below is the old review which is going to be updated ~~~~~
Top of the list once again is SuperAntiSpyware, which successfully detected and cleaned 121 threats on my test system. A fairly lightweight download and simple installation (5.99 MB) mean that this is not a burdensome product. If anything the general package whilst aesthetically similar, has improved, managing to detect and clean after a single scan rather than the two scans required previously. A reboot to complete cleaning was still required, though this is a minor inconvenience, and required by most packages. If I had to raise a criticism, it's that the freeware version still installs a start-up item which doesn't actually do anything at all. In the paid version, it loads the always on protection which is not available in the freeware version. This minor annoyance aside, it remains my top recommendation.
Promoted this time to joint second place is Emsisoft Anti Malware free edition, and let me be very clear that it is ONLY the free edition that I am able to recommend. Emsisoft Anti Malware was able to identify just 43 infections; though some of the more serious threats identified by SAS were included in these. If we disregard tracking cookies, then the margins narrow. However, detection rate is only half the battle, and unfortunately EAM was unable to automatically clean some of the more virulent infections found by itself. Nevertheless, it helpfully provides a link to forums for manual removal instructions.
The downside of EAM is the download size, being a huge 91.69 MB, immediately followed by further updates. Anyone on restricted bandwidth or dial up may be advised to look elsewhere, but for an average broadband connection this should not be a factor.
Separating A2 and MBAM is almost impossible. I found them to be on a par with each other regarding their scans, but both require a technical proficiency that many may not possess; A2 requires manual removal of many threats, whilst MBAM forced me to jump through hoops to get it working.
PCTools SpywareDoctor SE also performed well in scanning, finding 24 threats (excluding cookies). Unfortunately, cleaning the system proved more problematic. Despite reporting successful cleansing, SD failed to terminate processes already running, and did not in fact clean some of the more annoying infections. It would also be useful if SD prompted a reboot after cleansing, though it did not do this, and only experience dictated that this would be a good idea.
SD does, however, include real time protection, which most other products don't, and this protection did block those infections that it had failed to clean. Nevertheless, a further scan and clean with SAS was needed to fully clean my test system. A fine effort, but sadly falling short of the mark. Do note that the free version is no longer available from the PCTools website. It can be obtained as part of the Google pack, or from *here. *Warning: This is a Cnet download link. Downloads from Cnet (Download.com) now require the use of a proprietary installer.
Old timer Ad-Aware, coming in at 35.7MB performed reasonably, if not exceptionally, finding a further 24 infections even after cleaning with A-squared, 4 of which represented real threats, whilst the remaining 20 were cookies.
Doing less well in on demand tests were Spybot S&D, Spyware Terminator and The Cleaner 2010. Spybot was the other program that was actively blocked from running, and nothing I tried could overcome this. It does come with an on demand file scanner which can be run from the command line and set to scan your entire drive. However, after letting this run for over an hour and noting that progress had barely touched my relatively small installation system (2.1 GB) I cancelled. It would take an age to complete the scan, and would only examine files. Registry entries and services would be left untouched. Spyware Terminator found just 3 threats, and The Cleaner 2010 found absolutely none.
Arovax Shield is still in development, and starting to mature, though there are still bugs to be ironed out. For example, once installed, and after the obligatory reboot to enable it to start it's services, it immediately complained that it could not find Firefox. This is no surprise since FF was not installed on the test system, though I fail to see why it should prevent it from doing its job. Maybe as time progresses this will become more viable, but in my opinion it isn't quite there yet.
And so that leads us to my standard "other recommendations". Internet Explorer has now reached version 8, which I am sure will become the most prolific web browser before too long, and as such will be the most heavily targeted. I stand by previous recommendations that an alternative browser (of which there are many free ones these days, including Firefox, Opera, Google Chrome and Safari) will offer a safer browsing experience.
And in order to shut the door after the horse has bolted, there are few more useful than HiJack This, which is still a tool requiring expert help, but can be invaluable in helping to clean an infected system. Fortunately, the expert help is still only a forum away.
And as always, let common sense guide you. Don't run a program from an untrusted source, and don't visit websites where infection is likely. You should also beware of popups from programs that you haven't installed, some of the fake anti-spyware I managed to pick up in my browsing sessions was surprisingly convincing. Remember, sometimes malware will scream into your face that it is there (see pic, not a genuine window amongst them). It will just not tell you what it really is.
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Related Products and Links
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Some issues have been reported on 64 bit systems.
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Editor
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This software category is in need of an editor. If you would like to give something back to the freeware community by taking it over, check out this page for more details. You can then contact us from that page or by clicking here |
The comments section below is so lengthy that it has become difficult for our visitors to read. Future posts will now be edited for length and repetition, and personal attacks deleted. You are all welcome to join our Security Forum which is much better-suited for intensive debate.
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Comments
This latest revision has only been up for a couple of days as I write this, and I guess I should cut you some slack; but I couldn't help but notice that the "printer-friendly" version of this article has not been updated yet to match the "main" version, so please consider this as a neighborly reminder. I would be remiss if I failed to thank you for all you do.
Malwarebytes & SUPERAntiSpyware
I've had both of these for over a year.
Neither have found not even one infection.
So...
I must be good at not getting infected,
I must be very lucky,
or these programs are poo poo.
Hello, I have Microsoft Security Essentials downloaded atm on my laptop and was just wondering if it needed/recommended to have a anti-spyware remover software?
Thank you
I believe MBAM nicely complements just about ANY anti-virus program one may already have. The FREE version suffices if you only want a scanner/remover [to find/remove problems, if you're already infected][edit] Promotion of paid feature removed.
Hey Everyone, love this website. Was reading through the article and I dint notice a review for IObit Malware Fighter (URL: http://www.iobit.com/malware-fighter.html).
Been hearing a lot about IObit, was wondering how this competed with Malware Bytes.
Thanks for your time.
IObit products are currently not featured here because their site has a poor WOT (Web Of Trust) rating.
I hope in your updated review you'll include info from your tests on resource usage. I really don't feel that the size of the install file is a good direct correlation to how "burdensome" a product could be. It can only be an indirect indication of RAM usage and isn't likely to say much about CPU usage.
Of course, this type of product may be inherently lean, but I recently tried Spybot S&D on an old system and it's "Teatime" real time protection module immediately sucked up more than 100 meg. And looked like it might use even more had I had much more RAM available (like I said, very old system). Even in this era of gigabyte RAM, I don't consider that lean.
Still, good stuff. Keep up the good work!
Hi all,
I'm curious in getting all your valuable feedback/comments regards :-
a) essential capabilities for an Adware-Spyware-Scumware Remover.
b) what things in an Adware-Spyware-Scumware Remover are nice to have.
c) in terms of measuring/evaluating/comparing Adware-Spyware-Scumware
Removers what are important or critical criteria & for what reasons are
these important.
I'll list a few for starters -
. Size,
. Speed,
. Memory footprint,
. CPU utilisation,
. pre-requisite components (ie .Net, Java, ActiveX, etc),
. version of OS + SP that it'll run under,
. whether it will run on suspect/infected/compromised machine in the normal
OS or if it requires to boot/run standalone somehow.
A bonus request for those that have been following this category for a while, do you expect your utilities to progressively improve their capabilities in each update or new version & in this category, have they done so.
If not, which utilities at which versions of them do you feel were the best & how/where did subsequent version fall short?
A follow up. To be fair, I went and checked the installed size of that Spybot S&D (it's the portableapps version, actually) and it's over 50 megs. On the other hand, like I said, only one module used up more than twice the size of the entire installed program, so I'm still not sure of the direct correlation.
I have never posted here before so let me apologize ahead of time if I screw up some protocol.
I have win XP SP 3 on my PC. I ran SAS-4 free for 6-8 months and went to SAS-5 as soon as it came out. I was hoping SAS-5 would fix the problem I was having with SAS-4 hanging at shutdown. I'd get an "End NOW" dialog box and sometimes that wouldn't do it and I would have to kill it in Task Mgr. Right now I'm not recalling if SAS-5 fixed that because I got a big ol' stinkpot of other issues with SAS-5.
About 6 to 10 minutes into a FULL SCAN SAS-5 would crash and then up would pop a request for me to send a crash report and would I please include in the crash report my email address so they could contact me in a day or so. This went on several times a week for about a month. I was never contacted. About once a week there was a program update (I think I recall 3 of them) so I figured they were fixing this issue. Never got fixed.
With SAS-4 a scan would find maybe 10 to 40 tracking cookies. With SAS-5 a QUICK SCAN would seem to run just fine with no crash but it was reporting 200 to 700 tracking cookies at scan's end. At first I was just a bit amazed by the numbers but after so many reports with huge numbers of cookies on them I took a good close look at the last report (sometimes I'm a bit slow on the uptake).
The last SAS-5 scan log reported 560 cookies. I really started studying this report and there were only 28 cookies but the same 28 cookies were RE-REPORTED 19 MORE TIMES. 28 X 20 = 560!
I gave up on SAS. Me and REVO made it go away and now I run MBAM.
Hi,
I'm interested in some comments from those of you running more than one utility on any particular machines. Does doing so serve any specific purpose? Does this purpose get served well?
I have 'cleanup' machines & secure web browsing machines to check/test data, suspect drives & websites.
I do find running more than one utility has a noticeable cumulative effect upon machine performance & response!
Maurice.
Maurice,
There was a time when an all-in-one security suite was all you needed. But the real and simple truth, even back in the early 1990's. No single product can do it all. Whether it be Norton's, MBAM, SAS, etc ...
Since 1999, I have used at least, three, non-memory resident scanners along side my memory resident security software.
The scanners I use often varies with the best available freeware offerings. I am retired on a fixed income, so subscriptions are out. I will donate a reasonable amount to softare that does what it says. I automatically toss 'agressive' software. The software that says it is free, yet has three pages during the install process devoted to installing items you install anti-malware software to get rid of in the first place.
The multiple software approach to detecting and removing spyware, scumware, etc., benefits the end user by giving them the largest umbrella of detection and removal. I still use Spybot S&D, along with MBAM and SAS. I have Microsoft's Security Essentials as my main security software. It is memory resident, so I need only to schedule or manually scan my system with the others.
Regardless of what one uses, there are some things that WILL get by any protection if one is an aggressive Internet surfer. Yet, the three or four scanners, which are run almost daily on my computer, keep my system clean for the most part.
Hope that helps. I am long winded, my apologies for that.
Rick
Hi Rick,
Certainly very true. Thanks for your comments which really aren't long winded at all.
regards,
Maurice
Overall I usually find myself cleaning a system with both utilities. I always run SAS after MWB which finds stuff the MWB has missed. I think is good to keep both of these utilities in the toolbelt.
As I've indicated above I'm interested in finding out others using more than one tool as I'm sure this isn't all that uncommon.
Hi there.
I run both with no problems. Using Win 7 Ultimate x64
Cheers.
Any chance in adding Comodo Cleaning Essentials to the mix? Seems to have some good features. Over on Wilders, they have a nice thread about it. Looks that 2.0 BETA has just been released. I'd like to know how it stacks up to the heavy hitters here.
As already indicated, it is still Beta.
Are you able to give a short summary of the features including the good features for us.
We do not recommend the use of this type of software while it still has beta status, except for testing purposes. The editor may decide to include it after the final release.
FWIW- the free edition of SAS now comes bundled with the Ask Toolbar.
Just to clarify:
"bundled" typically means that the secondary program (ASK toolbar, in this case) is automatically installed along with the main program (SAS).
In this case however, there is no automatic nor deceptive installation of the ASK toolbar. Rather, SAS offers users the OPTION to install the ASK toolbar, if they wish to. It's done as an OPT-IN, meaning that the user must expressly check the box, agreeing to the offer, in order for the ASK toolbar to be downloaded/installed... by default (i.e., if they ignore or don't see the offer), it it NOT included.
As an incentive to accept ASK, SAS offers ASK-participants access to scheduled scanning, which is normally a paid-only option.
I beg to differ in that most folks understand the term "bundled" to mean "included" and not how a particular bundled component might act on it's own or with another at install. In this respect we always try to advise about such inclusions because having chosen to download product "A", most folks would not wish to have product "B" arriving with it :)
Hitman Pro finds system files suspicious! Wow what a alternative!
We receive many comments of this type but unfortunately they are meaningless without at least details of the file flagged and the operating system being used. With this information we will endeavour to achieve a solution, including contacting the vendor directly wherever possible. In the case of HitmanPro this is certainly an option. Without this information though such comments are regarded as trolling and ignored.
May be that is a FP :)
I believe the start up item of Super AntiSpyware mentioned in the revised post is a service which allows the context menu scanning. Version 5, recently released, did not come with anything particularly awe inspiring. It was primarily just some cosmetic changes and enhancements which allowed for a smoother transition to the support.com acquisition.
FWIW- previous upgrades (ie from version 2 to 3 or 3 to 4) were criticized for some exaggerated advertising in regard to enhanced scan speed and detection ability. For instance, when version 4 was advertised to be 150% faster scan speed and detect 150% more malware (I use the numbers as approximates), version 4 was being compared to the original version released how ever many years ago. It was not being compared to the version it recently replaced. So if there are some advertised enhancements they need to be taken in context of prior claims.
Still nothing new Dale, it's been months!
Hitman Pro is detecting CC Enhancer as malware. Anyone else experience this?
Can Anyone Tell Me Which Is The Best Of These Two Open Dns Are Norton Dns?
This depends on what your needs are. Open DNS has content filtering for instance but only phishing (no malware) protection, whereas Norton protects against a broader spectrum of malicious sites.
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